Cripple Mr Onion
by rallamajoop
Summary: Crossover with Discworld. Yuuko meets a witch of a rather different variety.


**A/N:** Not officially connected to _Just Another Tuesday_ (a.k.a., my other xxxHOLiC/Discworld crossover) - just another one of those ideas that hit me somewhere in the process.

* * *

An intruder to the room at the back of the shop (say, perhaps Watanuki bringing more tea or come to grudgingly check where his employer had gone and what she wanted him to clean next) would have been struck, first and foremost, by the contrast between the two persons present there. On one hand was the (apparently) younger, in her exotic silks and trailing laces, who held herself with such casual elegance as to give the impression that the clutter of the room had been arranged around her. The other looked less at home and was rather more soberly dressed. It would unfair to go so far as to suggest there was anything untidy about her - in fact, several errant items had guiltily tidied themselves out of her way when she'd entered some minutes earlier. However, there were a few things more or less immediately obvious from her clothing - firstly that she hailed from a colder climate in a colder time of year, secondly that there was a very good reason why fashions of the more exotic varieties rarely arise in colder climates, and thirdly that while there may have been layers of her clothes which could have been removed in the stuffy warmth of the shop, she knew perfectly well what sort of temperatures were waiting for her the moment she got back and was not going to go to the indignity for a little brief comfort, thank you very much.

Esmerelda Weatherwax was not one to go to too much effort to make herself comfortable. As far as she was concerned it was the job of the rest of the universe to do that for her and, should it fail in that regard, it was its job to deal with the full brunt of her wrath, boostered by all the personal discomfort she had available.

It has been said that the basic classes of witch may be divided into the maiden, the mother and the…other one (sometimes described as the crone, though only when the crone herself is well out of hearing). However, a number of less traditionally bent cultures find that, while the first two are still are still fairly acceptable, the 'other one' isn't photogenic enough for their purposes, and tend to replace her with… well, the _other_ other one; who tends to be a good deal younger, show a lot more leg and possess a body made of curves of a distracting variety. There are various words for her too – and only some of them politer than 'crone', although the implied insult in most is of a more behavioural nature. It was a specimen of this extra class whom Granny Weatherwax was meeting with now.

On the table, a pack of playing cards shuffled themselves energetically, the decorations adorning the backs rearranging themselves to depict a humourous scene of root vegetables for the occasion. Granny studied them with the look of someone realising that allowing the other to supply the cards for this occasion had represented a lapse in judgment on her part, though one which she was not under any circumstances going to admit aloud.

"…though I sympathise." Yuuko was saying, though her face was more smug than sympathetic. "Elf infestations are a nasty problem to have to deal with."

"Less nasty when one does the dealin' with _before_ they gets in in the first place." Granny Weatherwax replied, with the assurance of someone who'd dealt with both versions and knew the difference well enough to write a dissertation on the subject (even allowing for the fact any realistic dissertation written by herself would probably have read "Keep the blasted things _out!_" and left the details to the imagination of the reader).

"The kingdom is otherwise well, I take it?" Yuuko queried.

"As can be expected. And that boy of yours?"

Yuuko took a delicate sip from her teacup. "Is well. The spirits still cause him a certain amount of frustration."

Granny took a rather less delicate drink from her own. "Have you tried him on not believing in them?" She suggested, like a specialist delivering a familiar diagnosis.

"Alas, our Watanuki hasn't quite the conviction required." Yuuko admitted, with perhaps a tinge of what might have been real disappointment. "Though naturally I have suggested something in the way of _alternative_ solutions in the meantime."

Granny Weatherwax sniffed, which was going to be all she had to say on the subject of what she thought about Yuuko's idea of 'alternative solutions'. "I suppose you'd still be running that shop of yours."

"When it suits me, certainly." Yuuko crossed one long leg over the other, a move that had little more effect than to shift her posture from 'utterly at ease' to 'perfectly comfortable'. "You don't approve?"

"It's bad business, dealing in wishes. No-one ever got anything they really needed out of bein' given exactly what they asked for."

"Perhaps." Yuuko allowed. "Opportunities, however – those I find they may sometimes work with."

There was a pause in conversation as the cards dealt themselves, five to a hand. Both women examined theirs with inscrutable expressions.

"All very well, but it's all these prices of yours I don't hold with." Granny Weatherwax went on, picking up the chain of conversation where she'd left it without missing a beat. "Where I comes from a witch wouldn't dream of asking for anything in return for her services."

"Certainly." Yuuko commented distractedly, rearranging part of her hand. "I would dread to think that the people of your kingdom would have become nearly so foolish as for that to become necessary. But nothing is ever free in this world. Orderly transactions at least remain safe territory. For everything that one receives a price will be paid, willing or no, and I would do my customers a disservice by failing to ensure that is declared clearly from the beginning." Yuuko glanced at a card disapprovingly, which swept neatly out of her hand just in time to miss the new one flying in from the deck to replace it. Something which may have been a smile or may have been a frown flashed across her features, but one would have needed state of the art high-speed photography to tell which it had been. Yuuko had a Cripple-Mr-Onion face (which is much like a poker face, though with the slight suggestion that the owner had vegetables for dinner) that could have stopped a battering ram.

Granny Weatherwax discarded a couple of her own cards. A stray butterfly design was obscuring part of one of the new ones that flew in from the pack to replace them. She glared at it until it fluttered away. "It doesn't hurt one to do favours once in a while, that's all I'm saying."

Yuuko just smiled. "Perhaps, but you might find yourself in a poor position to complain about my means, today of all days. Were business not so good, I doubt I'd be in nearly so good a position to supply your request." Yuuko let her fingers trail over the hilts of a pair of swords with matching ornamental designs which were resting against the arm of her chair. "Other-worldly iron is no easy thing to come by."

"And I dare say we are better off for it, ten years out of every eleven, but there's never a convenient meteor when one is needin' one." Granny complained pointedly, as though the universe might be listening close enough to take a hint. "The young 'uns today have half a mind they can summon them on demand. Summon them! Hah! As though aimin' the things so as they land somewhere polite is half the trouble it's worth."

"Summoning meteors?" Yuuko frowned. "How unnecessarily showy. Sounds like wizard business."

"Wizards! Hah! Don't you talk to me about wizards."

Both women frowned down at their cards, for once united on an issue.

"Good magic is wasted on a wizard." Said Granny. "All those fancy staffs and runes and circles. Why, some of them goes around using magic _all the time_. As if it was there just to be used!"

"All their grand plans and fancy toys, forever showing up where he's not needed _or_ wanted in the least!" Yuuko muttered back.

"No good ever came of allowing a wizard to meddle in your affairs, you mark my words." Said Granny. "Any witch worth the hat on her head would know better than to _meddle_ where she wasn't wanted."

"_Precisely!_"

Agreement reached and again established, there was one of those brief thoughtful pauses in conversation where it was discovered that for any satisfying discourse on the subject, one of them would have to modify her stance.

"Although…" Yuuko ventured, once that moment had passed.

"Yes?" Granny Weatherwax prompted.

"Well, of course, if certain people need the occasional nudge in the right direction…"

"We're only doing 'em one of those favours I was talkin' about." Granny Weatherwax declared firmly.

"_Just_ as you say." Yuuko agreed, with obvious satisfaction. There seemed to be nothing more that needed to be said on the subject.

Granny Weatherwax at last glanced up from her hand again. "About happy with your cards there now?"

"I see little hope this hand would have been improved by changing any others." Yuuko replied, her voice a study in careful neutrality. The deck obediently dealt both players the last five cards, face up on the table, but Yuuko barely glanced at them before lowering all five of her own.

"I'm afraid you've caught me with an illegal card in my hand." She admitted, indicating the card in question. The hand she had placed contained rather a lot of high values, though also one with a star motif and the caption 'The Illusion' written clearly on the bottom. "A tricky one, this card, when it takes its mind to disguise itself. Even the other cards didn't recognise it."

Granny Weatherwax made a tutt tutt noise. She snuck her own, still undisclosed hand a suspicious look. "What's to be done? Shall we deal and begin again?"

"The agreement was a single hand of cards – there can be no changing of those terms at this late stage." Yuuko said firmly. "But it seems to me that an illegal card must lower the value of one's hand considerably. We must declare you the winner, I fear." She smiled, far broader than anyone who had just lost a hand of cards had any right to. She lifted the swords with rather more ease than their size and weight should have ever allowed and slid them across the table. "But I trust you will make good use of these."

Granny Weatherwax did not reach for them immediately. "You can keep those nice shiny swords of yours, the sheaths are all I'll be needin'. As a matter of fact, just the one will do nicely."

"Nonsense!" Yuuko replied. "They were born as a matched set. I wouldn't hear of separating them." Granny Weatherwax glared at her.

"That had better not be you precogniting stuff again." She complained. "I'll not be having any business with that hit-zu-yen you're so fond of. It only gets in the way."

Even without changing her facial expression in the slightest, Yuuko managed to smile even broader. "You wouldn't second guess me, Granny, now would you?"

Granny Weatherwax found herself stuck in the uncomfortable position between raising issue with the vague feeling she was being patronized and discovering that she was in no position to complain. The latter won. Granny gathered the swords to herself, somewhat awkwardly; as this is difficult to perform with two heavy objects whilst refusing to give up use of more than one hand to the cause. "Then I believes our business is concluded," she said stiffly.

Yuuko did not rise to see her off. "Speaking of favours, I suppose, should I come to need one in the near future…"

"Ye've only to ask." Granny replied, sincerely, but without enthusiasm.

"Splendid!" Yuuko declared. "Then I won't keep you any longer."

There are a few different ways by which one can cross dimensions. The sound of Granny Weatherwax leaving was the sound of a number of intervening universes getting hastily out of her way. Unfortunately, this is one of those sensory experiences that lack any more recognisable real world similes.

Yuuko packed her cards away, watched a few stray threads of fate weave their tapestry of a thousand futures around her, and mused on what sort of favour she'd make best use of.


End file.
